Signed First Editions: part twelve

:-p

AWESOMENESS

From Photo-a-day-2010

From Photo-a-day-2010

Dimiter by William Peter Blatty
Signed 1st Edition

William Peter Blatty returns with his first major novel in over 25 years!

"A beautifully written, haunting tale of vengeance, spiritual searching, loss, and love."

In 1973 Albania, Colonel Vlora (aka the Interrogator), the head of a team of torturers, questions the Prisoner, who the reader later learns is Paul Dimiter, an American clandestine agent referred to in some quarters of the world as 'legendary,' while in others as 'the agent from hell.'

Dimiter escapes to Jerusalem, where he encounters a number of engaging characters, including a doctor of neurology, a sharp-tongued nurse, and a grief-stricken Israeli policeman. The complicated plot confounds until the isolated pieces of the psychological puzzle that's Dimiter match up and fall into place, revealing surprising truths.

Source

Extract on About the Author:
Later Blatty resumed novel writing. Allegedly retiring to a remote and rented chalet in woodland off Lake Tahoe, Blatty wrote The Exorcist, a story about a twelve-year-old girl being possessed by a powerful demon that remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 57 straight weeks and at the Number One spot for 17 of them. It would eventually be translated by himself and director William Friedkin into one of the most famous and controversial mainstream horror movies of all time.

According to Blatty, Friedkin edited the film in a New York Fifth Avenue office building with the number 666, and Blatty would go on to win an Academy Award for his "Exorcist" screenplay, as well as Golden Globes for Best Picture (he produced the film) and Best Writing.

He has made the claim that in its first weeks of publication, "The Exorcist" novel, despite excellent reviews ad much advertising by the publisher, Harper and Row, was deemed a failure and was being returned by bookstores by "the carload" until what he calls "an extraordinary intervention by Fate" which he refuses to describe.

That's inspiring and very impressive.